As a kid, Emilio Estevez says his parents often dropped him off at the library for hours at a time. “They could drop me off and not worry that I was going to get into any trouble,” the multi-hyphenate filmmaker says. “It was a place that really stoked my curiosity. It was a place you could get lost in the stacks.”

Many years later, and nearly two decades after Estevez’ 1985 breakout role in “The Breakfast Club” – a movie in which he ends up ordered to detention in a high school library because he got in trouble outside of the stacks – Estevez spent a few months in the Los Angeles Central Library newspaper archives doing research for his 2005 film “Bobby” and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

It renewed his love for libraries, and at the same time brought him into closer contact with the homeless population of downtown Los Angeles, all of which came together a year or two later when Estevez says he came across an article by a former Salt Lake City librarian in the Los Angeles Times one morning.

“When the article landed at my front door, I was intrigued for a couple of reasons,” Estevez says. “His essay was about how libraries had become de facto homeless shelters and how librarians have become first responders. And because of my time on ‘Bobby,’ I said, ‘Is it really that bad here?’

“So I went back downtown to the Central and just sat there and observed. And thought, ‘OK, he’s right. This has reached epidemic proportions.’

“And then I began to think: ‘OK, what would it look like if the patrons here staged an old-fashioned ’60s sit-in and decided not to leave?’” Estevez says. “How would law enforcement react? How would the media spin it? How would politicians perhaps change the narrative for their own gain?’”

More than a decade later, those what-ifs are played out in “The Public,” in which Estevez serves as star, writer and director. It’s a story set during a life-threatening cold snap in Cincinnati in which a group of homeless men refuse to leave the library for one more freezing night on the streets and Estevez librarian character Stuart reluctantly at first, then wholeheartedly, joins their protest.

Estevez might have the leading role, but he’s far from the only star power in “The Public,” the cast of which includes Alec Baldwin as the police negotiator called to broker an end to the occupation, Christian Slater as an opportunistic district attorney running for mayor, Taylor Schilling as Stuart’s neighbor and budding love interest, and Jena Malone and Jeffrey Wright as Stuart’s colleague and his boss, and Gabrielle Union as a self-absorbed TV reporter.

It’s Michael K. Williams, though, best-known for his roles as Omar on “The Wire” and Chalky White on “Boardwalk Empire,” playing the charismatic leader of the homeless protest, who outshines them all.

“He steals the movie!” Estevez says in agreement as he explains how he landed his talented cast for a movie that blends heartfelt drama with a good measure of crowd-pleasing comedic moments.

“When you approach actors of this caliber, first of all, you know that everybody’s busy, and generally they’re going to be more predisposed to say no than say yes,” he says. “Where I had an advantage is that I had done ‘Bobby’ which had twice the number of actors that ‘The Public’ did. We were nominated for the SAG ensemble aware, we were nominated for a Golden Globe for best picture.

“So I had some street cred in terms of creating an ensemble environment and a piece of material that would speak not only to people’s acting sensibilities but also maybe speak to them on the social level.”

That he was also willing to juggle scenes and shooting schedules to minimize the number days each actor would need to be on set for the 22-day shoot in Cincinnati also no doubt helped.

Estevez says he intentionally avoided proscribing a solution to the problem, though as he talks about the issue of homelessness and libraries he’s clearly well-versed in what kind of programs libraries are incorporating to aid in the crisis: San Francisco is a model for many other libraries in how to blend social services with traditional library work, Los Angeles is picking up the pace after cutting some of its earlier efforts due to budget problems.

“I believe librarians need that kind of (social service) support because they have been tasked now with knowing how to administer Narcan – hang on, you know? – that’s not what they went to library school for,” he says.

“This movie, you might agree, you might disagree. It doesn’t indict, nor does it say this is how we have to solve the problem. It is simply an examination and somewhat of a day in the life of.

“I don’t believe that any one piece of legislation, any one resolution or bill is going to get passed to solve this,” Estevez says. “I think it’s collective. You have to change the collective consciousness of who we are and how we treat those who are less fortunate.”

And treat our libraries and librarians well, too, he adds.

“Sometimes we look for those moments in our lives we want to revisit,” Estevez says. “Every time I set foot back in a library, I am reconnecting to my youth on some level.”

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.